1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to electronic mail handling in data processing system networks and in particular to handling electronic mail for accounts which are monitored by multiple individuals. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to intelligently distributing electronic mail for enterprise general accounts among a plurality of individuals designated to respond to such electronic mail.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data processing system networks which provide electronic mail (e-mail) services, particularly those providing e-mail services to and from the Internet, commonly employ Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) e-mail servers to relay e-mail messages. E-mail messages for a client within a particular enterprise and/or local area network (LAN) are generally accumulated at an SMTP server for the enterprise/LAN. The e-mail client periodically queries the enterprise SMTP server to retrieve messages intended for that client. Typically one of two protocolsxe2x80x94the Post Office Protocol (xe2x80x9cPOP,xe2x80x9d the most popular version of which is version three or xe2x80x9cPOP3xe2x80x9d) or the Internet Mail Access Protocol (xe2x80x9cIMAP,xe2x80x9d the most popular version of which is version four or xe2x80x9cIMAP4xe2x80x9d)xe2x80x94is utilized to forward messages to the querying client. Both POP3 and IMAP4 deliver all available messages to the querying client.
Enterprises frequently utilize one or more xe2x80x9cgeneralxe2x80x9d e-mail accounts, accounts which are not intended to provide communications to any specific individual employee of the enterprise and which are usually monitored by multiple individuals. Examples include xe2x80x9chelpxe2x80x9d or customer service accounts and sales inquiry/order accounts. E-mail messages to such accounts may be distributed to individuals among a plurality of enterprise employees designated to respond to such messages based on individual efforts to retrieve such message. Thus, when an enterprise POP3 server is queried for messages received at an enterprise""s general e-mail account, available messages are usually forwarded to the individual checking the account. Because the POP3 and IMAP4 protocols deliver all available messages when queried, however, one individual retrieving messages from the general e-mail account may get deluged with messages while the next individual to check the account receives none.
One proposal for distributing e-mail messages from a general account to a plurality of individuals involves forwarding individual messages to the e-mail addresses of the enterprise employees designated to respond to such messages. However, this solution may require that a large number of e-mail accounts be set up and maintained, with the attendant requirements of conditioning e-mail servers to recognize all of the addresses. Additionally, when messages to an enterprise customer service account are being distributed in the manner described above, a customer""s e-mail message may not be forwarded to the same employee to whom a previous e-mail message from that customer regarding the same subject matter was forwarded. Thus, each employee receiving an e-mail message from the customer must learn the circumstances prompting the customer to send a message, which is inefficient for both the enterprise and the customer where the customer sends multiple messages regarding the same subject matter to an enterprise general account.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a method for intelligent distribution of e-mail messages received at an enterprise general e-mail account among a plurality of enterprise employees designated to handle such messages. It would be advantageous if the distribution mechanism avoided establishing individual e-mail addresses for each employee designated to respond to e-mail messages received at a general account. It would further be advantageous if the distribution mechanism permitted messages received from the same customer regarding the same subject matter to be forwarded to the same employee among the group of designated employees.
A message center server retrieves e-mail messages from one or more e-mail accounts and intelligently distributes them among a plurality of agents handling the messages. Messages received from the same originator regarding the same subject matter are treated as transactions and assigned a unique transaction identifier. When a message initiating a new transaction is forwarded to an agent, the agent""s login is associated with the transaction identifier for that message. Thereafter, messages retrieved from the e-mail account(s) are scanned for a transaction identifier. If found, the messagexe2x80x94a continuance of the transactionxe2x80x94is placed in the appropriate agent queue. The same agent thus handles all messages from the originator regarding a specific transaction, avoiding the need to relearn a transaction history. If no transaction identifier is found, the message is forwarded to an appropriate pool of new messages.
Agents retrieve messages from a pool by a fetch request, which includes a fetch count or minimum number of messages desired. Agents may thus retrieve a number of messages, work offline preparing responses, and reconnect to dump the prepared responses back to the message center server. Messages from an agent""s queuexe2x80x94transaction continuancesxe2x80x94are forwarded first in response to a fetch request, followed by the oldest new messages from a designated pool. Also, transactions continuances may be returned to the pool if the assigned agent is not logged in, ensuring that messages are handled within a required time frame. Performance indicators such as the number of agents available, the number of messages being handled by an agent, and the number of new messages in a pool may be monitored by supervisors.